forward to inflict it: he will leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature.
The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.
I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece,2 and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more,3 before I bid it farewell.
Teignmouth, April 10, 1818
From Book 1
[A THING OF BEAUTY]
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
5 Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite0 of despondence, of the inhuman dearth despite Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
io Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old, and young sprouting a shady boon
15 For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills0 small streams That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,0 thicket Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
20 And such too is the grandeur of the dooms0 judgments We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
2. In 1820 an anonymous reviewer of Keats's final some of the poets about town, have been talking volume of poems cited this phrase and, in a com-of 'the beautiful mythology of Greece' '; 'To some plaint that suggests the political charge that the persons . . . that mythology comes recommended poetic use of classical mythology could carry at this chiefly by its grossness?its alliance to the sensitive time, wrote disparagingly of 'the nonsense that pleasures which belong to the animal.' Mr. Keats . . . and Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley, and 3. In Hyperion, which Keats was already planning.
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ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE / 88 5
An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
25 Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite,
30 Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
35 Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own vallies. * * *
[THE 'PLEASURE THERMOMETER']
'Peona!4 ever have I long'd to slake
770 My thirst for the world's praises: nothing base, No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepar'd? Though now 'tis tatter'd; leaving my bark bar'd And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope
775 Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope, To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks. Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks0 beckons Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
780 Full alchemiz'd,5 and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven! Fold A rose leaf round thy finger's taperness, And soothe thy lips: hist,? when the airy stress listen Of music's kiss impregnates the free winds,
785 And with a sympathetic touch unbinds Eolian6 magic from their lucid wombs: Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs; Old ditties sigh above their father's grave;
4. The sister to whom Endymion confides his 777)?his secular version of the religious concept troubles. Of lines 769?857 Keats said to his pub-of 'felicity' that, in the orthodox view, is to be lisher, John Taylor: 'When I wrote it, it was the achieved by a surrender of oneself to God. For regular stepping of the Imagination towards a Keats the way to happiness lies through a fusion Truth. My having written that Argument will per-of ourselves, first sensuously, with the lovely haps be of the greatest Service to me of anything objects of nature and art (lines 781?97), then on I ever did?It set before me at once the gradations a higher level, with other human beings through of Happiness even like a kind of Pleasure Ther-'love and friendship' (line 801) and, ultimately, mometer, and is my first step towards the chief sexual love. attempt in the Drama?the playing of different 5. Transformed by alchemy from a base to a pre- Natures with Joy and Sorrow.' The gradations on cious metal. this 'Pleasure Thermometer' mark the stages on 6. From Aeolus, god of winds. the way to what Keats calls 'happiness' (line
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88 6 / JOHN KEATS
Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,7 Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus8 slept. Feel we these things??that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead
